Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 16:15:43 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block Subject: The Cateye HB100 About a year and a half back, I bought a Cateye HB100 integrated heart rate monitor and bike computer to use on my new recumbent. Opinions in the newsgroups were mostly positive, so it seemed fairly safe. Since purchasing it, I've decided that it's a good idea that is fatally flawed by the execution. It seems impossible that this unit could have been designed by anyone who has actually ridden a bike and used a bike computer at the same time. (Do the computer manufacturers perform user tests?) The liquid crystal display is quite small, and has a narrow viewing angle. Because of this, the computer oftens ends up reflecting the sun into your eyes. Lots of tiny indicators are present on the display. To add to the visual noise, many of them flash. Why should the "MPH" or "KPH" indicator flash? Do they think I'll forget? Two buttons are present, but in the "auto-start" mode where the computer only counts the time the bike is actually moving, the right button is almost never used. The left button, by contrast, is overloaded. Not only does it select the mode, but you have to hold it down for two or four seconds to select a clock display or average rather than instantaneous pulse rate. To reset the computer before riding, you push both buttons at the same time. This function is so easy to hit accidentally by bumping the buttons that accidental resets are frustratingly common. Why are the desirable functions of clock and average pulse hard to get, but the reset too easy? The buttons have no tactile feedback, and can be pressed without actually making contact, so you must watch the display. They're also the same black color as the rest of the unit, so in low-light or high-stress (traffic) situations it's hard to see which is which (and also easy to hit both for another accidental reset). The clock displays "00" as the hour for noon. The digits are there for a 12, and this is just a clock, not an elapsed time function; I can't come up with any ideas as to why they'd do this. Are clocks in Japan like that? The heart rate function works. Here the problem is in the sensor belt, which seems to be designed to fail. Two electrodes attach to the center transmitter section in a way that concentrates the stress on small, breakable tabs. My belt broke and became intermittent in the first week I had it. I contacted Cateye before tracing the problem, and that was mentioned. After I tracked it down, they acknowledged that some of the "older" belts had a problem, and sent me a replacement. The replacement was just like the original, of course. I've modified mine, and between the modifications and the parts of the two belts, it's still working. This doesn't excuse the poor design of the original, though. For comparison, let me describe the computer I used to use. It's a Vetta C-100, made in the days before Vetta's downfall. I bought it around 1990-1992, I think. The display is large, clear, high-contrast, and can be viewed from a much wider angle than the Cateye. The buttons don't have a tactile click, but they've never failed to make contact when pressed. It's never had an accidental reset. In terms of user interface, it is superior to the HB100 in every way. The only thing it doesn't have is a heart rate monitor. Adding a standalone Nashbar HRM would have been a superior solution to the HB100, and cheaper, too. Now for some constructive ideas: the HB100 could be fixed. First, throw out the user interface and start again. Cateye probably has a warehouse full of the displays, so we're likely stuck with it. A ROM rewrite could fix most of the user interface problems. Use the right button to bring up the clock and average pulse, get rid of most of the flashing indicators, make the user hold down both buttons for two seconds for a reset. Using the HB100 at present is an exercise in frustration. Should Cateye ever fix the problems, it could be a pretty nice unit. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA